. 28 September 1922 Berlin to 22 September 2015 Biel-Benken northern Switzerland
The Forger 2007
Two Wheels to Freedom 2024
by Arthur J. Magida, Beaverton Lib 940.5318 MAG
Quotes the "The Forger" more than 80 times, but includes other material. I will read the original someday.
NO INDEX which would be helpful when names or places are mentioned later in the book. The Dramatis Personae on page XV to XVII is better than nothing.
The 600 km bicycle journey from Berlin to Switzerland took four weeks; I've cycled that distance in 5 days (mostly I5, from Beaverton Oregon past the California border). I had a better bicycle and road surface, though the maximum elevation on the route (Siskiyou Summit, 1310 meters above sea level).
p03 parents (Fanja and Boris) and maternal grandparents (Bermann) immigrated from Minsk Russia to Germany after the revolution
- p04 Berlin 4% Jewish (Portland is 2%)
p05 Scheunenviertel neighborhood
- p07 November 1923 riots
p09 1926 Rishon LeZion
p10 1927 returned to Berlin after Cioma nearly died of dysentery
p16 1930 book burnings begin
p22 Hashomer Hatzair youth group
- p25 1939 Art School for Fashion and Advertising
p29 Manual labor in Bielefeld, Lotte Windmuller
p31 Hermannsdenkmal
- p39 enrolled all-Jewish art school
- p40 Renate Klepper
- p48 Jews encouraged to emigrate until October 1941, after that heavy emmigration taxes
- p50 father Boris sent to prison for smuggling butter
- p52 Apartment building bombed, moved to seedy Münzstrasse
- p59 Anton Erdmann's tailor shop, 96 Jewish tailors made army uniforms
- p62 Wysocky's tailor shop, 52 employees, mistress Evchen Hirschfeld had sex with Cioma
- p64 first real girlfriend Dorothee Fliess, p68 Fliess family emigrated to Basel Switzerland
- p69 Det Kassriel and Cioma go to
p72 bar at Hotel Kaiserhof, where Hitler goes
p75 new job retooling rifle barrels at Gustav Genschow's small arms factory in Trepnow
- p77 intentionally makes tiny errors that reduce accuracy
p83 parents transported Soribor, Cioma deferred
p85 Father Boris to Majdanek
- p86 Zoo bombed, animals eaten, crocodile tails taste like chicken
p90 Uncle Meier and Aunt Sophie send to Theresienstadt, Cioma moves to their apartment, p94 Det moves in with him
p95 co-worker Walter Heyman connects Cioma with 38 yo counterfeiter Edith Wolff "Ewo" at Kaiseralle 79 in Friedenau
- p97 27 yo Jizchak Schwersenz
- p98 Edith arrested June 1943, Jizchak escapes to Switzerland in 1944
- p101 arrangements for spare room at Taunussastrasse 29
- p103 paints Nazi "stamp" on 'Jizchak's" wehrpass photo with magnifying glass, fine Japanese brush and water colors
image of a wehrpass, rivets in upper right and lower left corners
p104 room at Frau Lange's, introduction to Franz Kaufmann in Halensee District
- p104 "stuff from three well equipped apartments in his grandmother/aunt/uncle/parent's flat"
- p105 earned 10,000 Reichsmarks selling it
p107 Introduced to jurist Franz Kaufmann (1886, later shot at Sachsenhausen in Feb 1944)
p108 Martin Niemöller
- p108 0.3% of Germans helped Nazi victims
p108 Helene Jacobs
p109 German ID's: passports, military IDs, kennkarte,Postausweis
- p110 Hans Joseph Meyer
p111 Reichsadler
p111 Ludwig Lichtwitz forger, taught Cioma
p112 studio in Moabit
p116 Georg Pahl photographs Hitler in 1923, surrenders film
- p121 Schlesinger's cousin 22yo Gerda . p122 "sleep at my place" . p126 Gerda "show you what we do"
p127 Robert Stolz song: du sollst der Kaiser meiner Seele sein
- smuggled 21 Jews in his limousine, 1940 fled to New York
- p129 Gerda befriends Nazi as "insurance", Cioma walks out. Gerda killed in Auschwitz August 1943
- p130 shoemaker aglet press for photo ID eyelets
p131 Pelikan Tintentod . . . over 200 IDs, 8 to 10 per week
- p133 followed by stranger, hunts for new rooms
p138 regular at Hotel Esplanade
- p139 Frau Schirrmacher new landlady
p142 buys sailboat Kamerad moored at Stössensee
- p145 takes friends sailing; Hanni Hollerbusch expelled from school for saying German-Aryan ancestry nonsense
- p150 new girlfriend Tatjana,
p152 made fake ID for Stella Kubler who later helped Gestapo
- p155 Ludwig unkowingly burns newspaper hiding 21 IDs
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